Thread

1. bondarchuk · 1791108329 · focus · HN ↗

   In order to have a reasonable view of the possibility of AI consciousness, one first has to have a reasonable view of the relation between human consciousness and the physical human brain. Unfortunately most people do not have that. Instead they hold on to received quasi-christian dualistic concepts about souls - even if they would never admit it in those terms, the way most people conceptualize the relation between mind and body it comes to basically the same thing.

   And in fact in our culture most people are VERY attached to these ideas, because it is tied up with "what makes us human", morality, and also death if you want to go there. So I believe for many people, for whom seriously entertaining the idea of a conscious computer program is so far out of the realm of possibility it hardly registers, talking about AI consciousness is simply a way to work through and re-assert these beliefs about human consciousness that they feel so strongly about.

   Hence you get articles like this with barely any substance, but some weird need to signpost every sentence with social ridicule. "Dumbest", "absurd", "obsession", "viral", "wildly tiresome", "third-rail", "psychosis", "sect", not to mention the scare quotes everywhere. Come on...

   1. tim333 · 1791121995 · focus · HN ↗

      I don't see that much social ridicule in the comments and concepts like consciousness and souls map fairly well onto everyday things. Consciousness onto what you or an animal or a computer system is aware of and can react to. Soul more to the idea of what something is so ChatGPT 3 inherited the soul of ChatGPT 2, as in recreated the basic idea.

      1. hardbass · 1791122423 · focus · HN ↗

         He didn't mean that kind of souls.

         1. tim333 · 1791123825 · focus · HN ↗

            Yeah but if you think of the soul of say Shakespeare up in heaven but you don't really believe in heaven then the soul of him is more the idea of him so it's similar?

            1. hardbass · 1791127490 · focus · HN ↗

               I can't speak for him but I think he meant the cartoony idea of souls many religious people have ie some magic inside the body that is not physical. The idea of Shakespeare is information which is physical.

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